Since I did an
article about my favorite games of last year, I decided to do a follow-up
article about the games that, unfortunately, disappointed me. I stayed the heck
away from the games I knew were going to bomb, like
Aliens: Colonial Marines, The
Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, any movie game in general, and you get the
idea. These are the games that I thought were the biggest disappointments,
since they actually had a few things going for them, but ultimately, were letdowns
of epic proportions. This isn’t a “worst list” so, don’t expect
Aliens Colonial Marines, the Flashback remake, The Walking Dead: Survival
Instinct, DARK, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Ride to Hell:
Retribution, Day One: Garry’s
Incident, and Battlefield 4 to be on this list, since I did my research and knew
to stay away from those games. Let us get started then!

8. Remember Me

I will start off with this game,
because for me, this was the first big disappointment of 2013. Luckily, it
isn’t too bad of a game to end up on my worst games list. I liked the setting
of the game, the combo lab, the memory-rewind mechanic, and it reminded me of
films like
The City of Lost Children.
However, it falls flat in just about every other area. The combat is repetitive
and clunky, the platforming is middle-of-the-road, and it was just an overall average
game. If you haven’t checked this game out, I recommend listening to the game’s
story and voice work in French with English subtitles since this game was made
by a French developer. It’s a shame it went through a bit of development hell
and was released in such a state to the gaming public. There were a lot of cool
ideas within
Remember Me, but it was
obvious that this game needed a few more months of polishing up.

The score I would have given Remember
Me: 5/10

7. Lost Planet 3

Talk about a game that did one
thing amazingly well, but everything else just average. The one thing that this
game did better than any game on this list is that it left me with one of the
most human and likable characters of 2013. I just fell in love with the main
character, Jim Peyton, who wasn’t some gruff soldier or some cold hearted
mercenary. He was a guy who is trying to make some cash for his wife and son
while being on a frozen and alien filled planet. The interactions between Jim
and his wife were some of the best moments of the game. It took you out of the
world of freezing winds and aliens for just a few moments as Jim listens to a
video response from his wife and you see him smile seeing who he is doing this
dangerous work for. These parts are easily the best moments of the game and its
worth checking the game out for these moments. The atmosphere at times also
works really well, making you feel like you are on this massive planet of
frozen ice.

Unfortunately, everything else about the game is just average. The
gunplay is solid enough, but the story is
very
generic. I was bored with the story because I knew where it was going. It’s
a shame since this game has one of the most likable main characters in any
shooter, and it gets stuck in a generic story that is in a slightly above
average shooter. The boss fights ranged from being decent to being utterly
forgettable. The robot controls feel clunkier than they should be, and sometimes
I feel like the guns given to me don’t feel satisfying. I think another high
point is the soundtrack. It made me sit back while traveling across the ice
covered fields in my giant robot and made me feel like a trucker going across
the desert roads to their destination. In the end,
Lost Planet 3 has something that could have been more, but wasn’t.
There really is something here, but it just isn’t fully realized. It also hurts
that this game is from a franchise people either like to a certain extent, or
really don’t care for. Check it out for the main character, but otherwise skip
it.

The score I would have given Lost
Planet 3: 6/10

6. The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

I honestly didn’t know what to
expect going into this game due to it starting out as a first-person shooter
and ending up as a tactical third-person shooter a few years later. It once
again has some cool ideas, but everything is mediocre. The enemy variety is nothing
noticeable, the story has a really bad pace to it, the tactical mechanics can
get cumbersome, and there were a few glitches here and there. The only things I
really liked about the game were the 50s setting and some of the story moments.
It was also interesting sending out agents to other parts of the map to tackle
missions you aren’t available to take on. I think I would have actually liked
to have seen this game when it was going to be a first-person shooter. I say
stick to
XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its
expansion for the
XCOM experience and
the
Mass Effect franchise for the
tactical shooter experience.

The score I would have given The
Bureau: XCOM Declassified: 5/10

5. Pokémon Rumble U

I knew first off that this wasn’t
going to be the Game of the Year or anything, but I was expecting a simple,
fun, chaotic, and charming game.For the
most part, I got what I was looking for. I just wish everything else was
fleshed out. The levels get repetitive, you can’t have only one
Pokémon out on the field because you
need four
Pokémon out at all times, and
the
Pokémon you get from passwords
break the early levels of the game. Compared to how
Skylanders and Disney
Infinity
are doing this whole toy thing, Pokémon Rumble U is very basic. Hopefully, they do a better job
with the next game. Maybe give it to a new developer, or just rethink the core
gameplay, and maybe this spin-off franchise will do better in the future.

The score I gave this game:
5/10

4. Deadpool

Yeah, this game is obviously going
to be on a lot of people’s disappointing games list. It does have a few things
going for it,
but you can tell
Activision had no hope for this game due to its small budget, short development
time, and how the entire Deadpool team got laid off right after the game was
released. This shouldn’t have been an issue, since the developer of
Deadpool, High Moon Studios, has had
prior success with making games based off of licensed properties, like the two
Transformers: Cybertron games. However,
Deadpool is filled with boring combat, boring upgrades, boring enemies, boring
bosses, and boring level design. It had no soul or passion put into game. You
can tell a lot of the small budget went into the game’s script and voice work,
which is this game’s only saving grace.

Nolan North’s Deadpool performance is
spot-on, and some of the other voice actors also put in solid performances. I will also admit that there are some funny
moments within the story, but outside of those story moments, the script could
get a little annoying. The jokes about the game’s low budget got grating as
time went on, and the game just feels so cheap and slapped together. Even the
bosses are just average, and they probably only got those specific villains due
to the low budget. There is none of that over-the-top Deadpool personality in
the game. Even though this game is blatantly a budget title, they could have
done something more, and worked within those limitations to give us a great
game. It’s an average game that is just not worth a price tag higher than $10
or less.

The score I would have given Deadpool:
5/10

3. Metro: Last Light

Surprisingly, this game wasn’t
going to be on this list, but the more I thought about it, the more I was
disappointed by it. It is by no means a bad game, and is probably the best game
on this list, but it definitely has some huge flaws with its overall design.
The gunplay was fine and worked well, the atmosphere was great, and some of the
characters were memorable. Where the game falls flat is in a few unfortunate
areas. The game is extremely sexist with its female characters either being
poor peasants or prostitutes. It doesn’t help that the main female lead
character is so forgettable and unlikable at first, and then somehow has a
crush on you later on in the game when there really wasn’t anything building up
to that. The two alternate endings also don’t really feel satisfying. It’s not
the worst game on this list, but for those and a couple other reasons,
Metro: Last Light, for me anyway, lands
in my most disappointing games of 2013 list.

The score I would have given Metro:
Last Light: 7/10

2. Fuse

Boy, this was made by Isomniac
Games? This was made by the creators of some of the most memorable PlayStation
titles of all time? Well, you could have fooled me with how bland and boring
this game is. On paper,
Fuse had a lot
of good ideas, including a squad-based third-person shooter with creative
weapons and characters that had different abilities. Unfortunately, I think EA
getting their dirty little fingers into the game ruined it! No surprise there,
right? Instead of being this tongue-and-cheek over-the-top spy flick, we get
this generic, boring shooter. I swear, the only things that were left over from
the original game were the creative weapons. Everything else is just painfully
generic. The characters were completely forgettable, the AI could be brain dead
(big surprise), the script didn’t match the tone of the end product, and I had
no urge to finish the game, which is why I didn’t review it. This was just
another game this year that had a lot of potential as a new franchise by
Insomniac, but you are better off getting a copy of
Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus for the PlayStation 3 instead
of giving your time to
Fuse. At least
Sunset Overdrive looks interesting.
Let’s hope that does well.

The score I would have given Fuse: 5/10

1. Every Game in Microsoft’s 2013
Line-Up

I know Microsoft has had a couple
of bad years in gaming, but this was one of the worst. I mean, no one can deny
they pretty much messed up in 2013. They had their major downs and then they
went up, but kind of went back down near the end of the year. The announcement
of the Xbox One and it’s showing at E3 2013 was a mess when they announced
those features that they then took out months later due to the backlash. If you
look at their gaming line-up, the best thing that they released in 2013 was
Capcom’s
Dead Rising 3. Their only
first-party exclusive for the Xbox 360’s last year was
Gears of War: Judgment, and that game just came and left with very
little fanfare. Think about that for a second. While the PlayStation 3 had so
many games that came out and were all different and gave you varying
experiences, the Xbox 360 just gave you
Gears
of War: Judgement
. That is so stupid that I am having a hard time putting
my feelings into words. Wait, you do have
BattleBlock
Theater
from the guys who made Castle
Crashers
. Yeah, I don’t hear people still talking about it, which mean we
have yet another game that came and went with little fanfare.

Look at the Xbox
One launch line-up. Sure, it had more variety than the PlayStation 4, but you
should look at the reviews of most of them. Negative review after negative
review popped up for games like
LocoCycle
and average reviews for games like Crimson
Dragon
. Ryse might have been beautiful, but its gameplay is dull to a point
that it’s embarrassing. I can’t believe that a developer like Crytek, who are
obviously very talented, came up with such a boring and repetitive action game.
Let us not forget that
Forza Motorsport 5
wanted you to pay real world money to get the more popular cars from the
franchise. What about the Kinect? Oh yeah, that isn’t improved either when you
have games like
Fighter Within
showing how the Kinect 2.0 is better. I personally think the only game that is worth
any hype for the Xbox One is
Project
Spark
. I swear, Microsoft needs to start over with new management for their
gaming branch, because I would rather not see them only work on just shooters
for the Xbox One’s lifespan. Just get rid of the Kinect, give a hoot about
having different genres of games that are not “indie” made, and stop with the
focus on TV, Skype, and other social media stuff.

What games or developers were you
disappointed by in 2013? List them in the comment section and let us know.

This is an editorial written by a member of the Gamnesia staff. Do you agree? Disagree? If you have your own thoughts you'd like to share on the subject and would like to see them published here on Gamnesia, you can write your very own content today!